[cifs-protocol] [REG:119031519752615] Group Policy GPE.ini file in sysvol

[Bryan Burgin]

Hi Garming,

Thank you for your question.  We created SR 119031519752615 to track this issue.  An engineer will contact you soon.

Bryan

-----Original Message-----
From: Garming Sam <garming at catalyst.net.nz> 
Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2019 7:56 PM
To: Interoperability Documentation Help <dochelp at microsoft.com>
Cc: cifs-protocol at lists.samba.org
Subject: Group Policy GPE.ini file in sysvol

Hi,

It recently came to my attention that some preferences set by the Group Policy editor on Windows create a 'GPE.ini' file as a side-effect. One such example is the definition of shortcuts within group policy which is described in [MS-GPPREF].

2.2.1 Preferences Policy Message Syntax

Shortcuts -> Shortcuts\Shortcuts.xml

As far as I can tell, GPE.ini isn't part of the files described by the protocol documents ([MS-GPOD] and those referenced by it). The function of the GPE.ini seems to be similar to (or perhaps even a duplication of) the LDAP attribute gPCUserExtensionNames and gPCMachineExtensionNames which are used to describe which GPO extensions are in use.

https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsocial.technet.microsoft.com%2FForums%2Flync%2Fen-US%2F512c4e0f-4a47-4df6-9030-08c19ba0761a%2Fwhy-some-gpo-has-adm-folder-some-has-group-policy-folder%3Fforum%3DwinserverGP&data=02%7C01%7Cbburgin%40microsoft.com%7Cc7bb72cd79494463c5cf08d6a8f1c5f4%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C636882153715493516&sdata=lQBsW%2FciEmtiwT4HcgYCLFI8J%2BdydtniUVHub8Z7N%2FU%3D&reserved=0

The comment made here by Martin Binder seems to be the most (useful) information available about this. Apart from confirming that this file should or shouldn't be documented, it would be nice to have some corroboration of at least some portion of the commenter's conclusions.
Despite being created additionally, I'm particularly interested in whether or not this file is actually required by (modern) GP clients (if so, perhaps it does need to be documented).


Cheers,

Garming